the mess up to top all others
by PersephoneQ
Summary: Zombie has learned to expect that everyday with Hanna Falk Cross was bound to get "exciting". And on a scale of one to ten, this most definitely had to be a twelve. Just sayin'.


Chapter 1; In which we learn that Ginger Snaps are the root of all evil

(Zombies POV)

I can't say I wasn't expecting something to happen that day, as I quickly learned that things got "exciting" every day. Of course, I couldn't predict just how "exciting" things were going to get that day. I just felt it coming, like a cat feels an on coming rainstorm. Though, since it was a regular feeling, I let it pass with only mild notice, and instead chose to put my book down and dig out the ingredients for pancakes. Not for me, of course. I can't taste anything anymore. But I do enjoy cooking, and often wonder if I was a chef before I died. That's what Hanna always says, but I think he just thinks so because it was only a year ago that he was eating nutella on bread or burnt microwave pizza from Worth.

I got out the pans and turned on the oven, but when I looked through our cupboards, I couldn't find the pancake mix. In fact, I couldn't find any food. I sighed, remembering that last night, Hanna had brought Veser over and the two had insisted on frying every food they could find. I honestly hadn't thought it was possible to fry pudding, but somehow they managed it and, after about a spoonful, concluded that it sucked.

Figures.

Anyway, I wrote Hanna a quick note, in case he woke up and I wasn't there and headed out the door, grabbing the gun I had bought six months ago out of habit on the way out. I walked to the bus stop and waited, for some reason extremely happy that morning. When the bus came, I hopped on, requesting a drive to the "artsy side of town", as Hanna liked to call it. He laughed and nodded, apparently knowing exactly where I was talking about. In less than twenty minutes, I was standing in front of Conrad's apartment door. I knocked and was greeted with a loud curse and a thud, then angry footsteps over to the door, which was flung open with quite a lot of vest.

"For the fifth time, Hanna, I can enter my apartment because its MY apartment and no, I won't show y-Oh. Zombie."

I smiled slightly at Conrad, who returned the favor shyly and almost apologetically. "Sorry, I thought you were Hanna."

"I could tell."

Conrad laughed nervously and stepped to the side to allow me in. "C-come in. What do you need, um-Oh, hey, what's Hanna been calling you this week, huh? Something ridiculous, right?"

I took off my shoes, like Conrad always has us do, and stepped into the kitchen, sitting at the table with him and chuckling fondly at his remark. I'll never tell Hanna, but I enjoy the names he gives me. It's always a new one and he keeps me guessing every day. "Something like that, yeah. Richard, I think. Or maybe it was Ricky."

Conrad laughed and a groggy Veser walked into the kitchen with us, grabbing a carton of milk from the fridge and a bag of ginger snaps from a cabinet. He sat down in the chair next to Conrad and laid his feet in Conrad's lap, which caused him to scoff in indignation and push them off. Veser laughed and put his feet up on the table as he dunked ginger snaps in the milk and crunched on the hard cookies easily with his shark-like teeth. He turned to me smirking.

"Whatcha here for, Zombie-man?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but he interrupted me. He leaned toward Conrad, whispering loudly in his ear with a hand blocking his mouth like a school girl sharing secrets.

"I know what he's here for! He probally wants ta mooch off yer food cuz Hanna ran out."

Conrad scoffed again, pushing him away and wiping at his ear. "You _SPAT_ in my _EAR_! Ugh! You're almost worse than Worth!"

"Thanks, I try. He's been giving me lessons!", Veser giggled, to which Conrad sneered and turned to me with a sigh and nodded, getting up and heading to his room.

"Veser, go back to bed or get out. I've got work to do and I don't have time to 'entertain' you. Zombie, take what you like. Oh, and I've got a bag of groceries under the sink I meant to give you yesterday."

I nodded and gathered up everything I needed then walked to the door. I was halfway out before a hand stopped me. I turned to see Conrad looking at me curiously.

"Have you told him yet?"

I shook my head. "He thinks I've got a job and get the groceries from the store. He doesn't know."

He frowned. "Why not? Why don't you tell him?"

I sighed. "Because...Hanna, for all his problems and whining, has too much pride to except gifts. He thinks that it's charity, and he hates that."

Conrad curses. "He's such an idiot. He needs help-why won't he except it?"

I shrugged, but I'd been wondering that myself for a while. Conrad let go of my shoulder and smiled tiredly at me. I nodded and left, thoughts of a certain red-head and the trouble he gets in filling my brain.

* * *

><p>The first thing I noticed when I entered back through the door, was I couldn't hear Hanna's loud snores anymore. Assuming that he'd already woken up, I shrugged and began making the pancakes. Soon I finished and called for Hanna. No response. I called again, this time mentioning food, which usually sent him running. Again, I was met with only silence.<p>

Now I was curious.

I went into Hanna's room and was surprised to see his bed made, almost like he hadn't been there at all. The tiniest-window-to-existence was open and all the papers that were normally on the wall had been taken off. I headed back into the kitchen, wondering who I should ask first, when I noticed Hanna's phone on the counter. He never leaves his phone.

I walked with a little more speed in my pace to Doc Worth's and threw open the door, revealing yet another argument in action. Doc and Lamont were at that point in their weekly argument where the "fangs" came out, in sense. Lamont had Worth pinned to the floor and was poised to hit him directly in the gut. Lamont's left cheek was puffed up and blood was leaking out of the side of his mouth, and Worth had a black eye and (for once in his life) wasn't multitasking with a cigarette.

They stopped at the sound of the door opening and looked up. Worth, being the sly cheater he is, took this opportunity of distraction from Lamont to knee him in his unmentionables. Lamont groaned in pain and fell off, rolling to the side. Worth got up, dusted himself off, and grabbed his cigarettes from Lamont's pocket.

"I win.", he said simply to Lamont, who growled but was in too much pain to reply with much more than a string of curse words that I'd rather not repeat. Worth walked over to me and scowled, taking a long drag from his cigarette before blowing the smoke in my face. He never liked me, really.

"Whatcha want, Zombie-freak? Make it quick, I got places ta be." Liar.

"Have you seen Hanna? I left him-"

Worth smirked an evil sneer of triumph, but his eyes spoke murder. "Ya lost Hanna? How do ya lose a bloody human _being_? **ESPECIALLY** one like _Hanna_!"

I frowned. "I didn't lose him. I went to Conrad's apartment to get more food and when I came back, he was gone."

Worth's frown deepened and he sat back in his chair, putting his feet on his desk and rubbing his chin in thought. "Maybe...he's at Tibenoch's? Nah, he'd probably leave a note er call. Wait-did ya check fer a note?"

I nodded, remembering scoring the counters for a note or a message of any kind.

"Did he take his phone?"

I shook my head no.

Suddenly Lamont jumped in, slowly getting up off the floor, still holding his wounded regions. "M-maybe he's with Toni? She d-did need help with her converter thing, right?"

Just then, with the timing of Father Time himself, Toni slammed the door upon, a wild and worried look in her eyes.

"OMG, HAVE ANY OF YOU SEEN HANNA?"

Worth chuckled. "Well, that answers that question."

Lamont rolled his eyes, but was smiling bemusedly. He directed his attention to Toni and they shared a concerned and questioning look. "No, we were just about to go looking for him. Why? Do you know where he is?"

Toni shook her head and collapsed into a rickety chair with a thump. She was breathing heavily and sweating like she had ran all the way there. And as it turned out, she had.

"No, I don't. But I got a text from him."

Worth sent Zombie an accusatory glare. "I thought you said he didn't take his phone?", he hissed.

I flinched and opened my mouth to retort and defend myself, but Toni interrupted.

"That's just it. It wasn't his number."

Lamont frowned. "Then how did you know it was Hanna?"

Toni put a finger up and dug in her purse for a moment before pulling out her phone and shoving it in Lamont's hand. I walked over (as did Worth) and read over his shoulder.

**Unknown number: 626-6435**

**Subject: I screwed up**

**Message:** Toni, this is Hanna. I need help.

She appeared to have been just as skeptic as us, because her responding message was:

**Were-Tonio**

**Subject: RE:I screwed up**

**Message:** that isn't Hanna's number. Who are you?

Now, being a Zombie and feeling emotions through a mesh screen like I do, I don't often get frightened by things. But, the message after that made my skin crawl and my blood run cold. It was a short video message. In it, Hanna, still in his pajamas, sat in what looked like an alley, bleeding and shaking. He had a large cut on his forehead and several on his arms. But what scared me even more was the person who he was in the alley with. It was a customer of ours, a witch who had more power than she could control. And just as the video ended, she said a word, a word that was no language. A spell.

I straightened my back involuntarily and scowled. I grabbed the phone out of Lamont's hand and headed out the door, Worth, Lamont, and Toni on my heals, calling after me.

About thirty hectic minutes later, I was back at Mr. Conrad Achenleck's door, this time rapping on his door was three other pairs of overly concerned and impatient hands. Veser opened the door this time, looking like he was about to make some snarky, rude comment, but he wisely shut his trap when he saw the looks on our faces. He moved out of the way and we all rushed in and I immediately went to Conrad's room, where he was working on his laptop in bed. He looked up, a surprised and slightly ticked off expression taking over his face.

"Zombie? What are you-"

Worth burst through the doorway, grabbing the phone and tossing it at Conrad.

"Check it, Fangula! Where's Hanna?"

Lamont and Toni sweat dropped but silently agreed. "If you could maybe track the phone number-"

Conrad's face went from bewildered and annoyed to worried and enraged in under seconds after seeing the message. He put something into his computer and after about five minutes read off an address to us.

"He's at 143 Stonlic Street. It's downtown and about an hour away by bus, so you'll have to hurry if you wanna make it there before noon."

I nodded and turned, only to come face to face with an equally angry Veser.

"I'm going with you, Zombie-breath."

Worth sighed. "Ves, stay your butt here, kiddo. We've already got one kid missing, we don't need another."

Veser sent his glare at Worth now. "I'm eighteen and Hanna is just as much my friend as he is yours. I. Am. Going."

The two glared each other down for a bit, but Lamont put a hand on Worth's shoulder.

"Just let him go, Worth."

Worth huffed and stomped out the door without a word, the rest of us following behind.

* * *

><p>"Hanna! HANNA!"<p>

From the moment our feet had touched the ground, we were yelling that name. Of course, after a few minutes, some of us resorted to other names for the animated, yet troublesome redhead. Some of us.

"Hanna~! Hanna-Bananaaaa~! Hanna-Bandana! Ha-"

"Vesser, he's not gonna respond to that. I wouldn't respond to that. Not if you paid me."

The selkie stuck his tongue out at Toni. "Yer jus jellin' cuz you dun have any cool nicknames fer the twerp."

That was a challenge, and Toni was never one to refuse a challenge, no matter what it was. "Oh yeah? OH HA-"

Suddenly she stopped and shushed us all. When it was silent, she tilted her head to the side for a minute, listening. Then, she dashed back out to the side walk and down another alley. We all followed her, yelling and griping (excluding Lamont and I, of course) all the way. After about three more turns and back tracks, she stopped, spreading her arms out to stop us as well.

"What was that fo-Oh. My. God...Hanna?"

Just ahead, curled up in his bedtime shirt, was Hanna. But not short, mischievous, silly, twenty-four year old Hanna. This was a tiny, sleeping, wounded, six year old Hanna.

It was in that second that I knew just how "exciting" my next few days were going to be. To classify it, on a scale of one to ten, this was definitely a twelve.

* * *

><p>(AN): I was considering titling it, "In which we learn Veser's teeth are the result of the evil temptations of Ginger Snaps", but I decided it was to long and...derpy :P I have nothing against Ginger Snaps. I actually like them a lot and have been craving them lately.

DISCLAIMER: I dun own Hanna or {...} or Sexy Vesy (or, ya know, Veser) or Worth or Lamont or Toni or Connie or anyone. Heck, I don't even own a DA account. All I own is the plot, a box of Ginger Snaps, and a very fluffy green cover. Enjoy this disclaimer, it's probably the only one I'll do :)

Anyway, I love you all! But, unfortunately, when the FF police interrogated me, I had to rat you out. You've been convicted of reading this FanFic and are now being sentenced to one review at the least! Even if it's to tell me I suck and everyone's OOC.

I wish you all wonderful times, fashionable crimes, and plenty of rhymes~!

With love n stuff, Pans


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